The MEGA Advanced Compton Telescope Project

The goal of the Medium Energy Gamma-ray Astronomy (MEGA) telescope is to improve sensitivity at medium gamma-ray energies (0.4-50 MeV) by at least an order of magnitude over that of COMPTEL. This will be achieved with a new compact design that allows for a very wide field of view, permitting a sensitive all-sky survey and the monitoring of transient and variable sources. The key science objectives for MEGA include the investigation of cosmic high-energy particle accelerators, studies of nucleosynthesis sites using gamma-ray lines, and determination of the large-scale structure of galactic and cosmic diffuse background emission. MEGA records and images gamma-ray events by completely tracking both Compton and pair creation interactions in a tracker of double-sided silicon strip detectors and a calorimeter of CsI crystals able to resolve in three dimensions. We present initial laboratory calibration results from a small prototype MEGA telescope.Comment: 7 pages LaTeX, 5 figures, to appear in New Astronomy Reviews (Proceedings of the Ringberg Workshop "Astronomy with Radioactivities III"

Interaction of aerodynamic noise with laminar boundary layers in supersonic wind tunnels

The interaction between incoming aerodynamic noise and the supersonic laminar boundary layer is studied. The noise field is modeled as a Mach wave radiation field consisting of discrete waves emanating from coherent turbulent entities moving downstream within the supersonic turbulent boundary layer. The individual disturbances are likened to miniature sonic booms and the laminar boundary layer is staffed by the waves as the sources move downstream. The mean, autocorrelation, and power spectral density of the field are expressed in terms of the wave shapes and their average arrival rates. Some consideration is given to the possible appreciable thickness of the weak shock fronts. The emphasis in the interaction analysis is on the behavior of the shocklets in the noise field. The shocklets are shown to be focused by the laminar boundary layer in its outer region. Borrowing wave propagation terminology, this region is termed the caustic region. Using scaling laws from sonic boom work, focus factors at the caustic are estimated to vary from 2 to 6 for incoming shocklet strengths of 1 to .01 percent of the free stream pressure level. The situation regarding experimental evidence of the caustic region is reviewed

Analysis of an existing experiment on the interaction of acoustic waves with a laminar boundary layer

The hot-wire anemometer amplitude data contained in the 1977 report of P. J. Shapiro entitled, ""The Influence of Sound Upon Laminar Boundary'' were reevaluated. Because the low-Reynolds number boundary layer disturbance data were misinterpreted, an effort was made to improve the corresponding disturbance growth rate curves. The data are modeled as the sum of upstream and downstream propagating acoustic waves and a wave representing the Tollmien-Schlichting (TS) wave. The amplitude and phase velocity of the latter wave were then adjusted so that the total signal reasonably matched the amplitude and phase angle hot-wire data along the plate laminar boundary layer. The revised rates show growth occurring further upstream than Shapiro found. It appears that the premature growth is due to the adverse pressure gradient created by the shape of the plate. Basic elements of sound propagation in ducts and the experimental and theoretical acoustic-stability literature are reviewed

Development of Silicon Strip Detectors for a Medium Energy Gamma-ray Telescope

We report on the design, production, and testing of advanced double-sided silicon strip detectors under development at the Max-Planck-Institute as part of the Medium Energy Gamma-ray Astronomy (MEGA) project. The detectors are designed to form a stack, the "tracker," with the goal of recording the paths of energetic electrons produced by Compton-scatter and pair-production interactions. Each layer of the tracker is composed of a 3 x 3 array of 500 micron thick silicon wafers, each 6 cm x 6 cm and fitted with 128 orthogonal p and n strips on opposite sides (470 micron pitch). The strips are biased using the punch-through principle and AC-coupled via metal strips separated from the strip implant by an insulating oxide/nitride layer. The strips from adjacent wafers in the 3 x 3 array are wire-bonded in series and read out by 128-channel TA1.1 ASICs, creating a total 19 cm x 19 cm position-sensitive area. At 20 degrees C a typical energy resolution of 15-20 keV FWHM, a position resolution of 290 microns, and a time resolution of ~1 microsec is observed.Comment: 9 pages, 13 figures, to appear in NIM-A (Proceedings of the 9th European Symposium on Semiconductor Detectors

Relativistic Particle Acceleration in a Folded Current Sheet

Two-dimensional particle simulations of a relativistic Harris current sheet of pair plasmashave demonstrated that the system is unstable to the relativistic drift kink instability (RDKI) and that a new kind of acceleration process takes place in the deformed current sheet. This process contributes to the generation of non-thermal particles and contributes to the fast magnetic dissipation in the current sheet structure. The acceleration mechanism and a brief comparison with relativistic magnetic reconnection are presented.Comment: 11 preprint pages, including 3 .eps figure

Particle Acceleration and Magnetic Dissipation in Relativistic Current Sheet of Pair Plasmas

We study linear and nonlinear development of relativistic and ultrarelativistic current sheets of pair plasmas with antiparallel magnetic fields. Two types of two-dimensional problems are investigated by particle-in-cell simulations. First, we present the development of relativistic magnetic reconnection, whose outflow speed is an order of the light speed c. It is demonstrated that particles are strongly accelerated in and around the reconnection region, and that most of magnetic energy is converted into "nonthermal" part of plasma kinetic energy. Second, we present another two-dimensional problem of a current sheet in a cross-field plane. In this case, the relativistic drift kink instability (RDKI) occurs. Particle acceleration also takes place, but the RDKI fast dissipates the magnetic energy into plasma heat. We discuss the mechanism of particle acceleration and the theory of the RDKI in detail. It is important that properties of these two processes are similar in the relativistic regime of T > mc^2, as long as we consider the kinetics. Comparison of the two processes indicates that magnetic dissipation by the RDKI is more favorable process in the relativistic current sheet. Therefore the striped pulsar wind scenario should be reconsidered by the RDKI.Comment: To appear in ApJ vol. 670; 60 pages, 27 figures; References and typos are fixe

Dissipation in Poynting-flux Dominated Flows: the Sigma-Problem of the Crab Pulsar Wind

Flows in which energy is transported predominantly as Poynting flux are thought to occur in pulsars, gamma-ray bursts and relativistic jets from compact objects. The fluctuating component of the magnetic field in such a flow can in principle be dissipated by magnetic reconnection, and used to accelerate the flow. We investigate how rapidly this transition can take place, by implementing into a global MHD model, that uses a thermodynamic description of the plasma, explicit, physically motivated prescriptions for the dissipation rate: a lower limit on this rate is given by limiting the maximum drift speed of the current carriers to that of light, an upper limit follows from demanding that the dissipation zone expand only subsonically in the comoving frame and a further prescription is obtained by assuming that the expansion speed is limited by the growth rate of the relativistic tearing mode. In each case, solutions are presented which give the Lorentz factor of a spherical wind containing a transverse, oscillating magnetic field component as a function of radius. In the case of the Crab pulsar, we find that the Poynting flux can be dissipated before the wind reaches the inner edge of the Nebula if the pulsar emits electron positron pairs at a rate >1.E40 per second, thus providing a possible solution to the sigma-problem.Comment: Accepted for publication in Ap